As with all things, down-sizing is a relative term. For those families in country houses, the process can take generations but still at each stage involving houses which by turns are grand, graceful and beautiful. The various branches of the de Lisle family have long had a succession of impressive houses, but as with many families, their home has varied as fortunes rose and declined or tastes changed. The news that their current seat, Quenby Hall in Leicestershire, is for sale, opens up another chapter in the family’s choice of home – a key question being; where will they end up next?

The de Lisle family of Leicestershire were originally the Phillipps from London but one Sir Ambrose Phillipps had acquired a sufficient fortune through his legal practice and place at court that, in 1684, he bought the Garendon estate near Loughborough for £28,000 (approx. £3.5m) and also the neighbouring one of Grace Dieu for good measure. It was Ambrose’s grandson, another Ambrose, who inherited the estate in 1729 and, more importantly, the wealth to embark on a Grand Tour of France and Italy and then, on his return, to create a Classical landscape at home, inspired by what he had seen.

The rebuilding of Garendon Hall according to Palladian principles was to be the final part of a grand plan which had seen Ambrose build an Obelisk, a Temple of Venus and a Triumphal Arch (all remain and are listed). Sadly though, Ambrose died in November 1737, aged just 30. It fell to his brother Samuel to successfully complete the vision of an elegant Classical house – though sadly it was not to last. As Samuel died without children, the house and estate were inherited by a cousin, Thomas March, who adopted the name Phillipps, who then married Susan de Lisles and their son, Charles, adopted the de Lisle crest and arms.

Charles died in 1862, and his son, another Ambrose, decided to adopt all the previous family names, becoming the impressively named Ambrose Charles Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle. He was also an early convert to Catholicism, switching when aged just 16 in 1825, which later led him to ask the leading Gothic architect E.W. Pugin, who had taken over from his famous architect father (and zealous Catholic), A.W.N. Pugin, to create a new house. Pugin usually remodelled or adapted houses so this commission was a blank slate and for which he created his ‘ideal’ design for a Gothic house. Unfortunately, the potentially generous budget turned out not to be available so what might have been one of the most interesting of the younger Pugin’s houses remained an aspiration on paper.

Instead, Ambrose commissioned a remodelling and enlargement of the existing house. Unfortunately, the marriage of Palladian and semi-Gothic was not successful; the new mansard roof unbalancing the proportions of the house (Pevsner described it as “…really rather horrible…”). On Ambrose’s death in 1883, his son and heir, Everard March Phillipps de Lisle, inherited a rather difficult financial situation and so embarked on the first de Lisle down-sizing, moving the family to their neighbouring estate, Grace Dieu in 1885, into the manor house built for his father in 1833-34 to designs by William Railton (who later also designed Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square).

The family were fortunate in that although E.W. Pugin’s grand plans for the main house hadn’t come to fruition, Grace Dieu Manor had been updated and was first altered, in 1837, and then enlarged, in 1847, by his father, A.W.N. Pugin – adding a wing and enlarging the chapel (Apparently the existing rood screen was so overwhelmingly to the elder Pugin’s taste that he fell into Phillipp’s arms on first seeing it!) . Pevsner described the house as ‘…fairly symmetrical with large, not at all picturesque, transomed windows with arched lights.‘. Grace Dieu Manor was to be the centre for a revival of the Catholic faith in England, with the Phillipp’s funding a new monastery and charitable school, and in Pugin they found a willing and ideologically agreeable architect. Yet, whether the house was really all that they would hoped it would be is debatable but with so much of Phillipp’s wealth and income tied up in his charitable and religious mission it was unlikely that Pugin would ever have had the chance to build them an entirely new house which truly expressed his vision of ‘true’ architecture.

A revival of the family fortunes in 1907 meant the de Lisles’ could up-size, once again moving back into Garendon Hall with the local paper reporting that up to 6,000 locals came to welcome them back after their ‘exile’. However, the two World Wars were to take a heavy toll on the house; forced to move out in both wars, the house became a training camp with the attendant neglect of basic maintenance and deliberate damage by the troops. Lt.-Col. Everard March Phillipps de Lisle died in 1947, and the estate passed to Ambrose Paul Jordan March Phillips de Lisle who faced the difficult choice as to whether to go back to Garendon. With the damage which needed to be repaired, the lack of sufficient compensation from the government, the restrictions on materials, and the death duties in 1963 from the death of the latest Ambrose, it was decided that the family would remain at Grace Dieu; a decision which was probably the death knell of Garendon. Uninhabited and uninhabitable, it became a millstone, and with the proposed M1 motorway to cut through the park, in 1964 it became one of the many demolished country houses.

In 1972, the de Lisles down-sized again; selling Grace Dieu to the Catholic Preparatory School which had occupied it for several years and buying the beautiful Quenby Hall. Described by Pevsner as ‘…the most important house in the Elizabethan-Jacobean style in the county.’ Though often misquoted without the stylistic qualifier, it does warrant a special mention as the exterior is almost completely unchanged from when it was completed for the Ashby family in 1621 and who owned it until 1904. The design of the house places it firmly with others starting in 1570s, such as Burton Agnes, Littlecote House, and Montacute, which were principally outward-looking, and where the main elevations were symmetrical and the arrangement of windows gave few, if any, clues as to the internal arrangement of rooms. The interior is also an equal to the exterior with fine rooms which feature remarkable panelling and some impressive fireplaces.

9 Responses to The de Lisles downsize: Quenby Hall for sale

I spotted this house in the Country Life last week and instantly wanted to buy it, shame I do not have £12,000,000 to so! I however always think it is a great shame when great family homes like this are put on the market, it to me is a sign of the sad decline of money even among the aristocracy! It would be nice though to have a look around, perhaps the National Trust or The HHA might be interested!

If the de Lisle family wish to remain in Leicestershire, they could look at Keythorpe Hall, which is only 6 miles to the south-east, for sale for £1.85m with 16 acres and Grade II listed. Alternatively, 12 miles in the opposite direction on the way to Grace Dieu Manor, is the more challenging Roecliffe Manor, a derelict former children’s convalescent home, for £2.5m with 36 acres, also Grade II listed.

Thanks Idm! Harper Collins have published two other books of mine since, ‘After Elizabeth’ and ‘The Sisters Who Would be Queen’. Chatto is publishing my next book on the rise and fall of Tudor dynasty next year. We are lucky enough to live at Osbaston Hall, Warwickshire which is grade 2* and not far from Garendon. We all hope Quenby will end up in good hands,

Hi Leanda — this may interest you or not, but it interested me enough lead me to this page: The other day, at a thrift shop here in New York City, I found 3 non-consecutive volumes of Plutarch, published in London in 1823. All contain “Thomas Cope of Osbaston Hall” coat-of-arms style bookplates and his signature on the title page. I’m sorry to say the books themselves are in terrible shape and probably not salvageable. But I wonder how they ended up here–most likely pilfered many years ago by an unscrupulous overseas guest… from Brooklyn, no doubt!

Lord Shrewsbury gave the figure of Christ Crucified for the Rood: this Christ was treasured as the Rood of Sion Abbey founded by King Henry V in 1415. Pugin made statues of the Blessed Virgin and St John, and added a full complement of Gothic Revival furnishings. There is, of course, no east window; the chapel is oriented according to the universal and honoured traditions of Catholic antiquity. There were flanking side altars of St Joseph and St Philomena, the first altars to be dedicated to these saints in England. The three altars were richly decorated: painted and gilded and outstandingly beautiful. There are four windows on the south side, two lights in each window, and erected in memory of John, XVI Earl of Shrewsbury. The west window has three lights and was erected in memory of the wife of de Lisle’s eldest son Charles who had died tragically in 1871. Legend has it that her ghost still haunts the manor house!